StarFight 3: Battlecry

by T. Jackson King

  “Incoming signal from Hunter One,” Andrew said over the vacsuit comlink frequency.

  “Accept it. Put it up on top of the wallscreen.”

  “Processing. Imagery going up.”

  The yellow-white lighted image of Hunter One appeared to the right of Joan’s image. As before the large wasp floated above a metal bench, his brown wings beating fast. To either side were other wasps called Servants. In the dark background loomed the giant yellow form of the Matron Prime.

  “Human leader, we arrive. We see the wet ones approach. What is the shape of our battle flight?”

  Jacob tongued the comlink stud within his vacsuit helmet. “Move to the rear of my flying nest. There you will join with the nests of our Support Hunters.” He tapped a control patch on his right armrest. “I have just sent a video of my planned formation and attack plan. One element of the plan relies on the use of missiles to collapse the containment fields of the black balls. Hunter Four and his fabrication ball produced many such missiles for my nests and for your Support Hunters. Does your nest possess such devices?”

  Hunter One’s black antennae leaned back. “We do. The battle imagery of the fight in the system of Warmth convinced the Matron Prime to have such devices built. We possess many.” A nearby Servant rose up, turned toward Hunter One and likely sent him a pheromone message. “We will launch them from the tail of our nest, using the tubes that disperse particle disruption seeds.”

  “Good. Human missile launch silos are located the same as your tubes,” he said, glancing to the situational holo that showed the approaching cluster of eleven manta ray ships. “While I will use my antimatter cannon against the enemy, our sky light beams are more numerous and more flexible in their reach. Those beams will focus on a single manta ray ship, destroy it, then move on to another ship. Much the way you combined your own beams against my smaller ships.”

  “That battle biting method is well understood by my Stinger Servant,” the wasp said. “Our sky light beams will shoot out from our three rings. We will combine them with the beams from the Support Hunters. What else do you wish from us?”

  Jacob smiled. Then stopped, moving to a neutral look since the wasp had little understanding of human body language. “As you can scent from the plan I sent you, I wish your nest to fly out first against the larvae killers. They will fire orange beams and black balls at you. You will deploy your Pull-Down hull plates, then move toward the wet ones. They do not know your weapon. Hopefully many of their flying nests will be caught and crushed in the pull-down embrace of your device.”

  The wings of all the wasps in the Flight Chamber beat faster. He suspected they liked his plan.

  “My Servants will do as you direct. And yes, the outer field of our Pull-Down device will intercept the black balls and turn them against the incoming sky light beams. No weapon will harm us.”

  Jacob was counting on that. “While your nest focuses the attention of the wet ones, my seven flying nests will swing out from behind this ice rock and seek to englobe them. We humans have learned from you the value of such a formation.”

  “A useful battle flight,” Hunter One replied. “The enemy approaches. Shall my nest depart?”

  “Not yet.” Jacob looked down to where Alicia, Richard and Daisy sat in vacsuits, with accel straps across them. “Before you go out, I have a scheme I wish to test. We communicated with our wet one captives. We suggested they speak to these new wet ones and tell them to leave your system. Their color sign language is complex. We communicated poorly. But I think their leader understood my wish.”

  The wings of every wasp in the Flight Chamber slowed their beating. “You do not wish to kill the killers of our larvae?” Hunter One said, his black mandibles opening a bit.

  “Yes! I do,” Jacob said quickly. “But if we can get these wet ones to depart without loss of life among your larvae and Servants on Food Enough, is that not a useful result?”

  “No wet ones will ever reach Food Enough,” Hunter One said. “This nest will destroy them all, if you humans are too fearful.”

  “No! We are the Cohort Allies of the Swarm. Whoever threatens you and your larvae and nests, we will attack. But humans have learned the value of communication with an enemy before battle.” What the hell else could he say? “It is often used to confuse the enemy, on our world of Earth. Communication is not surrender. It is simply another battle tactic.”

  Hunter One’s wings sped up. As did the wings of other wasps. “You practice deception! That we of the Swarm understand. Proceed with your deception. My nest will wing out and be first to bite the heads of these killers!”

  Jacob had no doubt the wasps in the giant ship would do just that. “Thank you for your understanding and patience.” He looked down. “Chief O’Connor, have your people bring up the water tank.” He looked to the other vital person. “Commander Branstead, deploy your color display panel and cross-link it to Chief Osashi’s station.”

  Below him, the two got busy.

  He looked up to the string of captain images atop the wallscreen. “Captain Sunderland, move your ship to a geosync orbit above the north pole of the asteroid. You will be the retransmitter of our com signal to the shark-head ships.”

  The gray-streaked woman nodded within her flexible vacsuit helmet. “As you command, captain. The Aldertag is moving out.”

  Jacob wondered if putting the frigate in clear view of the oncoming manta ray ships was useful. On one hand he did not want the enemy to see which ship originated the vidcom signal that the big shark-head would use to communicate. Best to keep the enemy guessing which ship held the fleet’s commander. On the other hand, it exposed Joan to any sudden enemy weapons fire. Well, being a fleet captain involved making choices. He hoped he was making the right ones.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Pod Leader took in the many images from the view lenses that covered the walls of his Swim Cove. Around him others did the same. The land predators were huddled behind a large ball of rock and ice. That he knew from the mineral devices that detected invisible particles. There were no other rock balls nearby. While his eleven sky floaters had spent part of a rest cycle traveling through a ring of such rocks, there was much room between them. Even with many rocks as small as a Podling scattered everywhere, it was not a crowded shoreline. For which he thanked the minty waters in which he floated. The long swim inward from the outer edge of this sky glow’s magnetic field had been tiring, especially as the leaders on the other floaters coped with the loss of so many pod-mates. But the treachery of the attack just after their arrival was about to be punished. His floaters were more numerous than the predator floaters, which included both land eaters and flying eaters, according to what Workings had discovered from his devices. Soon the Pod would feast on the remains of the Dry Ones.

  “Pod Leader, shall we assume the shoreline attack formation?” color-signed Sky Watcher.

  He considered the question. The Pod was used to attacking any enemy, whether water-born or land-bound, in a shallow arc that put every floater in immediate contact with the enemy. That allowed every Pod member to toss out their black balls and emit the orange beams in an overwhelming impact. But that formation had not worked with these land-bound ones. The first time they moved too quickly for Pod weapons to englobe them. The second time they lay in wait, unknown, ready to jump and bite like the clawed land predators who sat atop shoreline rocks. Then they had done the never before seen. They had vanished into the alternate world sea to escape the touch of Pod weapons. So strange these Dry Ones.

  “Not yet,” he signed back. “Let us see what shape the Dry One floaters take. Then the Pod will adjust and eat their floaters!”

  Harsh color patterns showed on the skins of Defender Prime, Birther, Workings, Food Grower, Pod Signer and others in the chamber. They looked forward to this final shoreline battle.

  “Pod Leader, we swim close to the rock behind which the Dry Ones hide,” Sky Watcher color-cast. “Our swim has slowed. Do we slow further?”<
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  It seemed most wise to allow the Dry Ones to come to his floaters and pod-mates. “Workings, slow our swim. Share this with our other floaters.”

  “Slowing our swim,” the pod-mate color-signed in a sharp flow of iridescent green, blue, silver and gold skin plates.

  Now, what would the Dry Ones do?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Jacob watched as two Marines wearing white Shinshoni hard shells carried in the five meter long water tank that contained the body of the biggest shark-head. It was the one who had promised to engage in air talk with the Pod Leader of the approaching manta ray ships. The Marines looked to Jacob.

  “Captain, where do we put this SOB?” asked a woman whose suit had the name Diego stenciled over her armored chest.

  He gestured. “Put it down on the deck to the left of the command pedestal. Beyond the XO’s seat. The metal bench that Hunter One sat on blocks the other side.” Jacob looked down to Alicia. “Commander Branstead, will that location work for setting up the color display panel?”

  “It will.” The Aussie woman turned in her seat, a struggle thanks to her accel straps. She looked back. “Antonova, bring up the panel. Set it to one side of that tank. Where it can see the side of the walking seal.”

  His friend and science geek unlocked her straps, rose from her observer seat at the rear of the Bridge, and walked forward. She held the square color sign panel. A support pole with bottom disk had been attached to its underside. The end result was something that looked like an old-fashioned lamp, except this thing had a flat panel on top. Attached to the back of the panel was the English-to-shark-head color signs translator module. While the big shark-head did not need the panel to talk to the Pod Leader on a distant starship, he and Alicia needed the panel to translate what the Pod Leader said, and what the captive shark-head said. The speaker on the backside of the panel would convert every color sign it saw into English. Which was why Lori was placing it to the left of the tank, with its color panel facing both the tank and the wallscreen.

  Richard unsnapped his straps and stood up. The vacsuited Marine pulled a taser handgun from a pocket of his vacsuit. He moved left to stand with the two white-armored Marines. Each of whom held a black RPN rifle with a taser nodule attached to the front end of the rifle.

  “Diego, stand at the rear of the tank. Harrison, stand at the front of the tank.” The chief moved to stand on the far side of the tank, facing the alien and Jacob. He aimed his taser handgun at the far side of the walking seal. “Captain, we are covering this . . . this walking seal with our tasers. If it does anything aggressive, we’re knocking it out. Okay?”

  Jacob knew better than to second guess the tactical arrangements of the grizzled and combat focused Marine. “Very okay.” He looked to Lori. “Antonova, turn on the device. I would speak with this walking seal before we allow it access to our vidcom transmission.”

  The Russian stepped close to the pole-supported panel and touched the power-on spot. “Sir, it is active.”

  Jacob reached below his armrest to a bag he had hanging there. He pulled out his taser handgun. He aimed it at the midbody of the rainbow-colored alien. Who now lay six meters distant from his command pedestal and the people seated at its foot. His gun put the alien under taser cover from all four sides. The eight eyes on top of its spine swiveled like chameleon eyes, each moving independently. Most looked to him. Others looked to the two Marines and Richard. The front of the head shifted forward, toward the wallscreen. Which it recognized as a vision device thanks to the images of ship captains above it, the true space image of the giant asteroid in the middle, and the system graphic and situational images to either side. The ten gray tendrils that rimmed the top of its mouth twisted in a pattern that meant something. What, who the hell knew.

  “Pod-mate who leads, you are here for air talk with your Pod Leader,” Jacob called out, raising his voice a bit to be sure the color panel picked up his words. “Pod water balls approach. We land eaters rest here at the shoreline. Will you propose all can live? Will you urge your Pod Leader to return to the watery world you claimed from the land flyers?”

  Colors moved swiftly on the side of the creature. The panel translated.

  “This pod-mate seeks air talk with Pod Leader. Life for all sought. Connect my colors with Pod Leader.”

  Jacob kept his eye on the four meter long alien. Who floated half-submerged in the clear waters of the tank, its thick tail moving from side to side very slowly. Still, the tail made the waters slosh up to the top rims of the tank. The four croc legs that ended in clawed flipper feet were extended, but not in touch with the tank floor. It looked calm.

  “Chief Osashi, send out the color talk signal given you by Commander Branstead. Send it by way of laser tightbeam to the Aldertag. They will pass it on to the manta ray ships.”

  “Sending color talk signal,” Andrew said, his crew-cut black hair shiny inside his helmet. “Aldertag acknowledges receipt. Signal outgoing.”

  Seconds passed. Jacob scanned the Bridge front. Everyone was there. The two redheads. The green hair of Cassandra. The chunky form of Willard, who was looking back and watching Lori, who stood not far from the Diego Marine. Auburn-haired Maggie was closest to the tank, not counting Lori and the Marines. Since her Power station did not need immediate attention, she had twisted in her seat, straps permitting, to watch the alien.

  “Captain, incoming vidcom signal from the Aldertag.”

  “Put it up on the wallscreen. Where the rock ball is. Let everyone have an easy view of whatever image we’re getting.”

  The crater-covered image of the asteroid disappeared. It was replaced by an orange-lit image. Which steadied and became sharp.

  Jacob saw a line of seven water tanks in a large room. Wallscreens showed on the ceiling and on side walls. Poles topped with color panels stood before each tank, much like the arrangement on the ship fragment. Behind the rainbow-colored form of the central shark-head lay a larger shark-head, resting in a bigger tank in the rear of the room. The central shark-head reached out with his flipper feet, grabbed the edge of his tank and pulled his head and upper body out of the water. Two black eyes stared out. The white teeth-filled shark mouth opened. A black tongue inside moved a bit. Behind the head ran a line of chameleon eyes. They moved in all directions, with a few looking forward to supplement the binocular vision of the front eye pair.

  The creature’s skin colors shifted to sharp patterns.

  “Who color signs to the Pod?” spoke the translator panel where Lori stood.

  Jacob looked away from the wallscreen image and over to the shark-head.

  The creature reached out with its front flipper feet and gripped the edge of its tank. It pulled its wide head and upper body out of the water and forward, so its long head rested on the edge of the tank. Its tail swished faster, splashing water out onto the Bridge floor.

  “Captive pod-mate signs to Pod Leader,” the panel said. “Air talk at shoreline proposed by land eaters. I am Workings from Salty Water.” The device squealed as it failed to translate some color signs. The creature twisted its head toward Jacob. “Land eater leader is there! On top of rock. Attack the largest water ball!” it said, pushing hard on the rim of the tank and sailing out of the tank toward Jacob. “I kill land eaters!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Pod Leader watched the forward view lens. It showed a land eater floater rising to float above the top of the large rock ball. Its size was smaller than that of Pod floaters. Still, it could bite hard. Recorded imagery from the attack made by land eaters on the two pursuing Pod floaters had included sky glow beams coming from this floater. As had small parts of itself that intercepted the balls of black nothingness. Why had it separated from the shoal of other land eater floaters?

  “Color sign arrives!” called Pod Signer from his tank. “Pod Leader, the sign arrives from that floater, not from a pod-mate.”

  “Display the colors from this land eater floater,” he color-signed in a flow of brown, yellow,
green and orange colors, arranged in the distinctive pattern and intertwining that was the pattern used by all leaders of any floater.

  A strange image filled the view lens. It showed a chamber much like his Swim Cove. But this chamber was yellow-lit, similar to the color of the sky glow under which they had claimed new shallows for Pod younglings. And similar to the sky glow of this new system of warm worlds, several of which held plentiful waters. Resting on gray rocks were multiple land eaters. He recognized them as such due to the recorded color signs that his pod-mates on one fragment had color-cast, just before they were attacked by white-colored land eaters. Two such white ones were present in this image. As were six other land eaters who rested or were elevated above their rocks. Those land eaters wore transparent coverings similar to the wetskins worn by pod-mates whenever venturing onto the dry land for exploration and working of mineral deposits. And the chamber seemed very dry. But there was a water tank in the space, off to one side. In it rested a pod-mate! Was this someone taken captive by the white skins, before they left behind the glow-rock that destroyed the fragment and floater attached to it?

  “Pod Leader, I am Workings of the water ball Salty Water,” the pod-mate color-signed in a rush of colors. “These land eaters seek air talk at the shoreline. But they are the ones who entered my fragment and took captive myself and three pod-mates.” The captive twisted in his tank to point with his tendrils at the land eater who rested on the tallest rock in the chamber. “The leader of land eaters is there! Resting on that rock. Attack this largest water ball!” It gripped its tank with its front walk-pads and lifted upward. Then it pushed itself into the dry air. “I kill these land eaters!”

  The imagery vanished.

  Anger flowed through his air bladder, then through all of him down to his tail. This pod-mate had been captured from the wreckage of Salty Ball, one of the two pursuing floaters he had sent after the last land flyer floater. So had three other pod-mates. Worse, it had been studied by the land eaters in order to find ways to color sign. Then it had been forced to seek a surrender of other pod-mates by threat from the white land eaters. The white ones held weapons similar to those recorded in the swim invasion of Workings’ fragment. Yet it had shown bravery. It had warned all other floaters. Then it had launched itself through dry air at the leader of these land eaters. He could do no less.